“In 45 minutes, there was nothing left”: a car hits a building on the road from Tarbes to Lée and causes a fire, one death

Difficult to believe and understand, in fact, why a car, driving in the direction of Soumoulou-Pau, collided head-on with the wall of a barn, in Lée, at the crossroads of the road to Tarbes (RD 817) and of avenue d'Ossau (RD 613), ending up bursting into flames and setting fire to the building.

The driver, who has not yet been identified, died.

Woke up by the smell of fire

In accommodation adjoining the barn, where three other vehicles were parked, “twenty meters away”, a tenant family, a mother and her three children were sleeping soundly. It was the eldest who, awakened by the smell of smoke, raised the alarm. Fortunately, on time.

“They apparently didn't hear the boom, the crash of the car. They were able to get out, unharmed, even if they were very shocked,” Lée's first deputy, Laurent Bergerou, told us on site that morning. “In this tragedy, there was an element of luck.”

The toll could have been heavier. “The building caught fire very quickly. In 45 minutes, there was nothing left. Apparently, the firefighters saw the flames from a long way away,” adds the elected official.

After controlling the fire, the firefighters were still on site mid-morning, as were the gendarmes from the Pau company, already investigating the circumstances of this accident. “This only involves one vehicle and its occupant, who was alone, died,” confirmed Captain Arnaud Philippe, deputy commander of the Pau company.

At this point, it remains unclear whether the motorist was a man or a woman. The military collected elements “to consolidate one hypothesis rather than another”.

During the intervention, to secure the intersection, the Tarbes road was closed to traffic until the beginning of the afternoon. Electricity had also been cut off in the area by Enedis agents.

Several accidents already

There remain many questions that arise. “What happened?” There were no signs of braking,” notes the first deputy mayor.

This is not the first time that in the middle of this long straight line that is the road to Tarbes, an accident has occurred at this crossroads where 25,000 vehicles pass per day. “I came for another drama, on the other side, on this post, a year and a half ago” breathes Laurent Bergerou.

“Accidents?” Yes, already a few” confirms the father of the owner of the place, “once, a car entered the gate of the family house at midnight and ended up in the courtyard. Not to mention the times when the cars ended up in the corner of the building. But something like that, no, never.”